Google announces 'Buy' Button in mobile search ads

Google has launched Purchases on Google, which lets consumers on smartphones click on a `Buy` button to buy products directly on Product Listing Ads (PLA).

PLAs are the listings that show a product’s image, price and the retailer selling it in Google search results for product-related searches. The `Buy` feature, which Google said it was testing with a few retailers, uses saved payment credentials from the user's Google Account for transactions.

Along with the ads that pull up in search results, shoppers would also get information on product ratings and availability at nearby stores. The additional information will be available on Google Chrome for Android in August 2015, with iOS support to follow in the near future, the company said.

Google Now service would now offer location-based information, including on discounts on items and the working hours of stores a user is close to. The service will also be able to access a user's browsing history to show if the price of a product a shopper has searched for in the past has fallen.

Now several companies, including Google, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest, are trying to bridge the gap between mobile browsing and desktop purchasing with a 'Buy' button.